I paled as I felt his glare cutting through me. I didn't make eye contact, but I could still feel the anger. "I'm sorry. I...I trust Jamie, but I didn't think you would."

More sighing through his nose. I felt Dad's gaze turn toward my girlfriend. "And you, young lady...I'll get Nick to drive you home."

"Please don't!" Jamie whimpered. "I won't tell anyone anything! I promise!"

"Good. `Counting on it. You'd be getting us into a lot more trouble than we're in already. Of course, your folks have probably already sent the cops after us, and if you can find us, so can they." Dad got up from the table.

Jamie got up too. "Wait! Where are you going!"

"Calling Nick. What else?"

"Don't! Look, Mr. Mueller, my chest was glowing, just like your son! And for the record, I didn't track you guys down the normal way. ET told me how to find you!"

Dad smirked. "Nice try. Did Elliott put you up to this?"

"Yes, I mean, only because he kissed me. Somehow he...transferred something to me. The point is, if I go home, they'll just put me in a cell like your son."

Dad rolled his eyes about the kissing part. He leaned over the table. "Then you'll have to leave town."

"But what am I going to do about food and housing?"

"You did it before somehow. You'll have to do it again. I'm sorry. Ordinarily I wouldn't put a child out on the street, but if they find you, they find my sons, they find me. We all go off in a big black van."

"You can't send her away!" I protested. "I'll run away too!"

Dad sighed, winding up for a verbal barrage. He almost yelled his reply. "You think you're so smart? What are you going to eat? Where will you sleep? What'll happen to your little science project? More importantly, how will you hide from the authorities?"

I sighed, fumbling for answers.

Jamie started crying.

"Don't do that," Dad groaned. "Please don't."

This only made Jamie cry more. "I've been glowing just like him. They'll take me back and do experiments on me! I just know it! I'm not going back! You're just going to let a poor kid live on the street?" She kept sobbing.

"Dammit. All right, all right. You can stay." He massaged his temples like he had a migraine.

The town had no synagogue, and Dad was a self proclaimed "Stay home Baptist." We never went to any kind of services, probably a good idea, considering how people were looking for us, and we ran a risk even going to school. "I've seen a few cops going to church," Dad told us once. "Elsewhere, they don't have as many excuses to hang out."

So Dad watched golf and football on Sundays, worked on the truck, ran errands, making us help him...a lot. Not the best time to be building a spaceship or testing things, not with him constantly watching us and trying to get us to do stuff around the house.

Now that he'd found out about Jamie, Dad got too paranoid to even let us leave the house. We kids helped replace the basement window (once Dad, by himself, brought the item home), made more plans for our ship.

"What you did yesterday wasn't very nice," Gertie complained to Jamie when Dad left for the store again. "You made it sound like I made everything up. I really did fly, and he didn't believe me."

My sister had tried to convince Dad again at breakfast, and earnestly too, but he only smiled and rubbed her head. "Of course you did, sugar."

Jamie dismantled a digital watch with a screwdriver, another ship thing we had going in the lab. "I'm sorry. Look, this kind of thing is hard for anyone to believe if you don't actually show them. And if your dad actually saw what we did, he'd never let us experiment with it again. You nearly passed out, Gertie."

My sister reddened. "I had oxygen!"

"I know, I know. But until we have this thing looking safe as a car, I'm afraid your dad is going to get in the way. I mean, he almost kicked me out the moment he learned about me!"

"You shouldn't have lied. People get in trouble all the time because they lie about things. If they all told the truth, bad things wouldn't happen so much."

Jamie rolled her eyes at the naivety. "I know, I know. Can we at least get this spaceship...space worthy before we unveil our little project?"

Gertie reluctantly nodded.

Don't ask me how she did it, but Gertie somehow managed to bring "Mister Squirrel" inside the house. It actually sat on her arm and let her pet it. When Dad saw this, he panicked, ordering her to take the rodent out of the house. "That's a wild animal! You want to get rabies?"

"He doesn't have rabies."

Dad laughed. "And how do you know that? Did you ask him?"

Looking very serious, Gertie nodded. "Uh huh. I asked if he was sick, and he said no."

Dad groaned. "All right, Gertie. Enough fun and games with the wildlife. Get him out of here. It's bad enough I'm a kidnapper. No need to get child endangerment added to my rap sheet."

Gertie sent the squirrel away.

After a whole day of hiding like Anne Frank (he didn't let us outside at all - he even shopped without us), Dad said, "Okay, this isn't going to work. We have to look normal or people are going to snoop on me for making you disappear. That means you all go to school tomorrow."

I awoke the next morning to a grabby arm and a sensation of warm breath in my face. Apparently, during the night, Jamie had snuck into my bed.

Blushing furiously, I let out a startled cry, rolling away from her.

My body, clad in longjohns, ran out of mattress and thumped on the floor.

I sprang to my feet, retreating to the corner.

Jamie propped her head up on her elbow, giving me a mischievous grin. "Good morning."

I felt too flustered to do anything but stammer.

Gertie had been watching from the doorway. "I'm telling daddy."

Jamie sat up, straightening her oversized Grateful Dead shirt. "You do that, and I'll tell him you let Mister Squirrel sleep on your pillow."

I gawked at my sister. "You slept with Mister Squirrel on your pillow?"

Gertie scrunched up her face. "He likes me, okay?"

"We didn't do anything," Jamie blurted. "By the way, Elliott...cute pajamas."

My blush deepened. "They're longjohns."

I took a cold shower, went to breakfast.

"Daddy," Gertie said in between mouthfuls of cereal. "If we took a spaceship to another planet, and stayed there a long time, would you miss us?"

Dad furrowed his brow. "That's a strange question, sugar...Did your Martian friend say he was coming back or something?"

Gertie shook her head. "I'm just asking. I mean, if we were to build a spaceship, and..."

He laughed. Dad still didn't believe we were capable of anything that fantastic. "Of course I'd miss you, baby. Why wouldn't I?"

My sister took a deep breath. "Elliott was saying that you'd be relieved, because you wouldn't have to hide anymore."

"Gertie!" I cried.

Dad crossed his arms indignantly. "Elliott, what's this crap you've been feeding your sister?"

I sighed. "Dad, I know...this whole situation...It's been hard on you."

He swallowed. "That doesn't mean I don't love you. Don't you realize that me, being here with you guys, has made me the happiest I've been since, well, since me and your mom were on speaking terms? Don't you know how hard I've been fighting to get custody?"

I stared, speechless.

"I wanted you to come with us to meet ET." Gertie shot me a disapproving glance. "But Elliott didn't think you'd want that."

Jamie, who had just finished showering, chose that moment to join us at the table. "ET's going to come back. With his friends. Are you honestly telling us that you want to go with them? To some unknown place on the other end of the galaxy?"

Dad, who had been lifting a mug of coffee to his lips, spilled some on his beard. "Wait. He is coming back?"

I stared at Jamie in puzzlement. How did she know all this? Did she make that story up? I'd never heard anything about ET coming back to get us.

Gertie gave me a questioning look. I only shrugged.

"Not anytime soon, but yeah. You really want to come along?"

Dad wiped his face with a towel. "Whoa whoa whoa! No one's going anywhere! I lost you kids once, I'll be damned if I lose you again!"

"You won't lose us if you come along," Gertie insisted.

Dad furrowed his brow. "You're serious. They're going to pick you up and fly you off to...Dagobah."

"It's called Jufuceri, The Green Planet. He told me."

He frowned, appearing to give it some serious thought. "Do they have breathable air?"

Gertie nodded eagerly. "Elliott's-"

Before she could finish, I blurted, "Their ship will have plenty."

Jamie's slight nod at my fibbing explained her previous story.

My sister sighed. "His planet does too. And two moons. He said so."

"And that makes it all true," Dad groaned, sipping from the mug. "So you're saying there's exactly enough air to carry you across the span of our solar system (which incidentally is thousands of light years - we can barely make it to the moon, let alone Mars!) and food, and water, and equipment to stall any sort of degenerative atrophy you might experience in a weightless environment."

Gertie answered him in the same matter of fact tone she would telling him about her day at school. "ET doesn't need rocket fuel. It didn't even take a second for his ship to leave earth!"

Dad grimaced, looking not at all convinced. "Still, this isn't just a trip to corner 7-11. We're talking about hundreds upon thousands of miles."

Jamie gave me this look like we should completely rethink our plans. "Um, Mr. Mueller..."

"It's Taylor. Mueller's just my alias."

"Fine. Mister Taylor. Say they only flew us all to another country, or a deserted island. Would that be better?"

Dad's eyes narrowed. "You really want to play Swiss Family Robinson for the rest of your life?"

"We were about to play Lost In Space just a minute ago. That'd probably be worse. Anyways, none of us can go home, can we?"

Dad sighed through his nose. "Let's table this discussion for when your space buddies actually show up."

"The spaceship needs to be bigger," Gertie whispered to me. "For him."

"Now I'm confused. Are you building a ship, or is one coming to you?"

Before I could explain, Jamie blurted, "Both."

Dad chuckled. "In that case, maybe I could squish myself into a tin can for a couple hours..."

My girlfriend, catching my pained expression, just rolled her eyes and shook her head, as if to say, `It figures.'

"How come ET keeps telling you all this stuff in secret?" I asked my sister as we walked to school.

Jamie just scoffed. "She made it up, just like my story about the aliens coming to pick us up."

"I didn't make up anything!" Gertie shouted. "ET really does talk to me! Maybe you can't hear him because he wants us to work as a team. Maybe he feels sorry for me because I kinda get left out of stuff."

"Left out! You were our first astronaut!"

"After I begged you. And you made daddy think everything is a joke! I'm proud of what I did!"

I put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm proud of you too. I just don't think this is something we should involve grownups in."

"We have to involve him eventually! He's our dad!"

Jamie stopped and stared at me. "You think that's why ET only talks to her? Because we're fighting?"

"Dunno. In Peter Pan, the adults couldn't fly. Maybe Gertie's more connected to him because she's not as grown up as we are."

"So what happens to us when we get to his place? Will he kick us out for being too old?"

I frowned. "I...don't know."

This softened Gertie's anger somewhat. "ET wouldn't do that! He likes you!...I think he just wants you to be nicer to me."

I gave my sister an apologetic look, but before I could say anything, she added, "Also, ET says you're scared, and he doesn't want to frighten you. You probably could hear him yourself if you just tried to listen harder."

"You're right. I...do get scared, especially when he makes me glow."

"That's why you're such a good astronaut, Gertie." Jamie knelt down and looked her in the eyes. "You're not afraid of anything."

My sister grinned at this. We kept walking.

Michael, who had been eavesdropping the whole time, asked, "What's with all this astronaut talk?"

"Long story."

He stopped outside the barber shop next door to the old Bruhaus. "That's what you said yesterday when I asked you what all that stuff was in the basement."

I glanced at Gertie. The look on her face told me I couldn't let her down again. "We're building a spaceship. We've got an engine and everything. It actually works."

Mike looked skeptical. "You're serious."

"You saw how we trashed the basement, didn't you?"

He scratched his head. "So what happens if you build this thing? You honestly think you can fly it up to...Lord knows where, and meet up with our space man?"

Gertie nodded vigorously. "It'll work. We've done tests. I flew."

Mike didn't buy it. "You...flew."

Jamie crossed her arms, leaning on a barber pole. "She's not lying. It uses energy fields or something. We sent her up in the air and everything."

"We can take you with us," my sister said with a smile. "You, dad, Elliott, Jamie, me, we can all go see ET together! It'll be fun!"

Michael gave me this look like Gertie had gone crazy.

"Whenever you get some free time, and I'm off school, I'll show you. This thing actually works."

Now he gave me that look. "You...honestly built a spaceship."

"Not exactly. We're still trying to get parts together, but we've got an engine."

"And pressure shielding," Jamie added.

We continued walking. "Say you're telling the truth, and you do have some sort of starship engine. What are you doing for air?"

"We got a few plans. Plant based air supplies, pressurized air...maybe borrowing medical supplies if we find anyone who has more 02 than they actually need."

Jamie scribbled something in a notepad. "It'd help if we could buy some scuba tanks."

Michael frowned. "What about materials? You know rocketships have to be asbestos covered...titanium, aluminum, some kind of metal. You make something out of wood and it'll burn to a crisp in the atmosphere."

Gertie had an answer to this. It sounded plausible. "That only happens when you go straight up or down really fast. If you put a shuttle on the back of a plane..."

My brother only responded with a look like he'd developed a headache.

"We've made something that acts like a shield."

"Yeah? What if the shield breaks? Ever think of that? Then you gotta think about food, water, and how you're going to go to the toilet..."

"We're working on it."

Mike blew a raspberry. "Look, Elliott. If you're going into space, you need to make serious plans. Air and necessities for the entire length of your journey, waste disposal systems, fire systems, sleeping arrangements..."

"Okay, okay," Jamie sighed. "You're right. So we're not ready to fly all the way across the galaxy. The Wright Brothers had to test things out before they got their big plane off the ground. But we're on to something. This thing moves fast. I bet we could fly it around the world in a couple minutes. We might even have the Concorde beat."

"Yeah? What happens if you hit a bird? Or an asteroid, for that matter?"

"So we need a metal frame....And someone who knows how to weld."

Mike must have noticed the look on my face, for then he muttered, "Me and my big mouth."

Michael left for the high school, Gertie for the neighboring lower grade building, I and Jamie up the steps to the middle school.

Halfway to the door, Jamie kissed me right on the mouth. I flailed my arms, pulling away quickly. "Jamie! Seriously! Right in front of the school?"

She grinned. "See you in class."

I covered my glowing chest with my backpack, but I still got some stares when I came in the building. I could only hope it had to do with our unseemly behavior and nothing else.

I'd only gotten halfway to my first hour class before the school bully shoved me into a locker. I shrank from him, expecting the worst.

"Relax, wimp. I'm not going to beat you. I want to ask you something."

Roger reached into his jacket, taking out a page he'd ripped from the Weekly World News. "I've been reading an interesting story about a space man. Mind if I check something real quick?"

Before I could say no, he took my glasses and grabbed my face, holding the paper beside my head for a comparison.

He turned my head to the side. "Your real name's Elliott, isn't it?"

I swallowed hard. "What do you want?"

He slammed my head against a locker door, talking through his teeth. "I want you to friggin' admit you're the guy in the article!"

The color in my face drained away. "Let me see what you're talking about."

He held up the rumpled newsprint page, showing me my photograph, paired with an artist's sketch of a generic bug eyed saucer alien. "See? Now fess up! Is that you or not?".